ALLEGORIES

A L L E G O R I E S  C O L L E C T I O N

narrative photography

“Sometimes reality is too complex. Stories give it form.” – Jean Luc Godard

a story in a frame

Most Western pictorial art represents a moment in time a ‘snapshot.’  A story in a frame, this collection is radically different.

Showing the subject multiple times in the same frame may be unique in the world of photography, but it's part of a long tradition in Western art. Known as ‘synoptic’ or ‘continuous’ narrative, it's fascinated me since my student years. A  personal favourite is The Tribute Money, a fresco by the Italian Renaissance Master Masaccio. The fresco depicts a scene in which St Peter appears three times and a tax collector twice. It tells the Gospel story of Jesus directing Peter to find a coin in the mouth of a fish, in order to pay the temple tax. The story is illustrated at a glance, in a single frame, but to understand the story you need to be familiar with it.

In the same way, I created each of these images to illustrate or tell a story that has meaning to me. But their meaning to you will come from you alone, through your own eyes and from your own lived and cultural experience.